Category: corpus linguistics

LCR 2015 Call for Papers & book of abstracts

LCR 2015 Call for Papers

@LCR2015

Following the successful initial conference in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) in 2011, and the second conference in Bergen (Norway) in 2013, the third conference in this biannual series will be hosted by Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, from September 11-13, 2015. See the conference
website http://www.ru.nl/lcr2015/  for more details.

The conference is organized under the aegis of the Learner Corpus Association

Conference Venue
Van der Valk Hotel Cuijk – Nijmegenhttp://www.hotelcuijk.nl/en

Organising committee
Pieter de Haan
Rina de Vries
Sanne van Vuuren
Ans van Kemenade
Jacqueline Berns

Programme committee chairs
Marcus Callies (Universität Bremen)
María Belén Díez-Bedmar (Universidade de Jaén)
Gaëtanelle Gilquin (Université catholique de Louvain)
Hilde Hasselgård (Universitetet i Oslo)
Signe Oksefjell Ebeling (Universitetet i Oslo)

Confirmed keynote speakers
Kees de Bot (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
Barbara Seidlhofer (Universität Wien)
Janine Treffers-Daller (University of Reading)

We welcome papers that address all aspects of learner corpus research, in particular the following ones:
–       Corpora as pedagogical resources
–       Corpus based transfer studies
–       Data mining and other explorative approaches to learner corpora
–       English as a Lingua Franca
–       Error detection and correction of learner language
–       Extracting language features from learner corpora
–       Innovative annotations in learner corpora
–       Language for academic / specific purposes
–       Language varieties
–       Learner corpora for less commonly taught languages
–       Learner Corpus Research and the Common European Framework of Reference
for Languages (CEFR)
–       Links between learner corpus research and other research methodologies
(e.g. experimental methods)
–       Search engines for learner corpora
–       Statistical methods in learner corpus studies
–       Task and learner variables

There will be three different categories of presentation:
–       Full paper (20 minutes + 10 minutes for discussion)
–       Work in Progress (WiP) report (10 minutes + 5 minutes for discussion)
–       Corpus/software demonstration
–       Poster

The Work in Progress reports and posters are intended to present research still at a preliminary stage and on which researchers would like to get feedback. The conference aims to be a showcase for the latest developments in the field and will feature both software demos and a book exhibition.

The language of the conference is English.

Abstracts
Your abstract should be between 600 and 700 words (excluding a list of references). Abstracts should typically provide the following:
–       a clearly articulated research question and its relevance;
–       the most important details about research approach, data and methods;
–       the main results and their interpretation.

Abstracts should be submitted through EasyChair
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lcr2015  by 31 January 2015.

Please follow instructions provided on the conference website.

Abstracts will be reviewed anonymously by the programme committee.

Notification of the outcome of the review process will be sent by 15 March 2015.

Nov 10 CFP ENGCORPORA2015 Extended deadline

This Conference is intended as a gathering for corpus linguists working on any aspect of the English language and concerned with corpora issues. The main issues that this conference aims at debating are:

– the use and reliability of a corpus in the hypothesis-building process

– the use of corpora in linguistics courses or in language courses

– How corpora can advance research into the diversity of “Englishes” and the question of norms.

Keynote Speaker: Mark Davies

More information on: http://engcorpora2015.sciencesconf.org/

To Submit your proposal go to : http://engcorpora2015.sciencesconf.org/

Reach the organizers by sending a mail to: engcorpora2015@sciencesconf.org

Measuring ling. complexity: A multidisciplinary perspective

Update

 All presentations here

IMG_3036

The Linguistics Research Unit of the Institute of Language and Communication hosted a workshop on ‘Measuring linguistic complexity: A multidisciplinary perspective’ on Friday 24 April, 2015. 

The main objective of the workshop were to bring together specialists from a number of different but related fields to discuss the construct of linguistic complexity and how it is typically measured in their respective research fields. 

The event was structured around keynote presentations by five distinguished scholars:

  • Philippe Blache (CNRS & Universite d’Aix-Marseille, France): Evaluating complexity in syntax: a computational model for a cognitive architecture
  • Alex Housen (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium): L2 complexity – A Difficult(y) Matter
  • Frederick J. Newmeyer (University of Washington, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University): The question of linguistic complexity: historical perspective
  • Advaith Siddharthan (University of Aberdeen, UK): Automatic Text Simplification and Linguistic Complexity Measurements
  • Benedikt Szmrercsanyi (KULeuven, Belgium): Measuring complexity in contrastive linguistics and contrastive dialectology

A round table closed the workshop.

Details about the event are available on the workshop website: http://www.uclouvain.be/en-linguistic-complexity.html

The number of participants is limited. Participation is free of charge but registration is required before Friday 3rd April (via our registration form at http://www.uclouvain.be/en-505315.html). 

Thomas François (Centre de traitement automatique du langage) & Magali Paquot (Centre for English Corpus Linguistics)

Conclusions

A multidimensional construct: Bulté & Housen (2012:23)

Shared challenges, shared oportunities

Where is the place of theory here?

Do we need new measures? Do we ned to validate existing ones?

The many facets of complexity.

Formal linguistics may be a good starting point but don’t have much to offer.

Building a research community ?

 

Digital natives and corpora in language learning #corpuslinguistics

For digital natives, “research” is more likely to mean a Google search than a trip to the library […] it remains to be seen how corpus resources co-exist with online services like Google and online distionaries and how learners’ search habits behave in both contexts (Pérez-Paredes et al. 2012:484).

Pérez-Paredes, P., Sánchez-Tornel, M., & Alcaraz Calero, J. M. (2012). Learners’ search patterns during corpus-based focus-on-form activities. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 17(4), 483-516.

LINDSEI: the Turkish component

LINDSEI-TR: A New Spoken Corpus of Advanced Learners of English
By Abdurrahman Kilimci

Cukurova University, Faculty of Education, English Language Teaching Department, Balcalı, Adana, Turkey

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to describe the LINDSEI-TR, the Turkish component of the LINDSEI (the Louvain International Database of Spoken English), which was initiated to compile a corpus of spoken data produced by learners from varied mother tongues (Gilquin et al., 2010). In this respect, the main objective of the study is to present the aim, development, and the design criteria of the corpus along with its quantitative and qualitative characteristics. The corpus is considered to be of value to researchers in terms of delineating the features of learners’ spoken interlanguage and designing teaching materials to improve second language teaching and learning.

Keywords: Corpus linguistics, spoken corpus, interlanguage, second language teaching and learning

CFP From data to evidence in English language research: Big data, rich data, uncharted data 19-22 October 2015

From data to evidence in English language research: Big data, rich data, uncharted data

***Conference in Helsinki, Finland, 19-22 October 2015***

To diversify the discussion of data explosion in the humanities, the Research Unit for Variation, Contacts and Change in English (VARIENG) is organising an academic conference that addresses the use of new data sources, historical and modern, in English language research. We are particularly interested in papers discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the following three kinds of data:

Big data

In recent years, mega-corpora and other large text collections have become increasingly available to linguists. These databases open new opportunities for linguistic research, but they may be problematic in terms of representativeness and contextualisation, and the sheer amount of data may also pose practical problems. We welcome papers drawing on big data, including large corpora representing different genres and varieties (e.g. COCA, GloWbE), databases (e.g. EEBO, ECCO) and corpora created by web crawling (e.g. EnTenTen, UKWaC).

Rich data

Rich data contains more than just the texts, including representations of spacing, graphical elements, choice of typeface, prosody, or gestures. This is further supplemented by analytic and descriptive metadata linked to either entire texts or individual textual elements. The benefit of rich data is that it can provide new kinds of evidence about pragmatic, sociolinguistic and even syntactic aspects of linguistic events. Yet the creation and use of rich data bring great challenges. We invite papers on the representation, query, analysis, and visualisation of data consisting of more than linear text.

Uncharted data

Uncharted data comprises material which has not yet been systematically mapped, surveyed or investigated. We wish to draw attention to texts and language varieties which are marginally represented in current corpora, to data sources that exist on the internet or in manuscript form alone, and material compiled for purposes other than linguistic research. We welcome papers discussing the innovative research prospects offered by new and and previously unused or even unidentified material for the study of English in various contexts ranging from communities and networks to social groups and individuals.

Abstracts are invited by 15 February 2015 for 30-minute presentations including discussion as well as for posters and corpus and software demonstrations.

The following invited speakers have confirmed their participation:

Professor Mark Davies (Brigham Young University)
Professor Tony McEnery (Lancaster University)
Professor Päivi Pahta (University of Tampere)
Dr Jane Winters (Institute of Historical Research, University of London)

The conference forms part of the programme celebrating the 375th anniversary of the University of Helsinki in 2015 and will be held in the Main Building of the University.

More information on the conference will be available on the conference home page at: http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/d2e/. Please address any queries to: d2e-conference@helsinki.fi.